30 Day Shred

So I was on babycenter (at around 3 in the morning) reading different posts from women in my birth club (moms of April 2013 babies) and several women in the group were talking about doing the "30 Day Shred." I googled it and saw lots of before and after shots. I read both the positive and negative reviews on Amazon and decided to go for it. I'm not necessarily doing this for weight loss, but for inches off.  My body has changed the way it distributes weight and I'm having difficulty fitting back into my pre-pregnancy clothes comfortably. I hate tight clothes! Leah is 6 weeks old and I've had doctor clearance to start working out (again?). I'm ready!

Why am I choosing this over the gazillion other exercise routines? Well, it's supposed to get you quick results and it only lasts 30 days. I like that it has an exact beginning and end dates and that the whole routine only takes 30 minutes. I can do it during Leah's morning nap and it gives me a little routine to my day. It's something that I can realistically stick to.

I decided to take some before shots and boy did they mess with my self esteem! My belly and butt are NOT looking good. I felt embarrassed when I looked back at the picture. I guess I had been feeling "thin" since I didn't have a huge pregnant belly anymore, but the pictures (especially the side view) were sobering. I'm not sharing the pictures on my blog unless I have some pretty awesome after results, but I guess I'll share my measurements.

Arms - 11 in

Waist - 33 in

Belly - 38 in

Butt - 43 in

Thighs - 24 in

Right now, I'm within 5 pounds of pre-baby and 15 pounds of where I guess I'd ideally like to be. I've never really been stuck on getting into a size 2 or anything. I'm very happy with my regular size 8-10 body. Also, I've never really been one for dieting. I like to eat and I'd rather work it off than starve myself or eat... healthy... ugh.  Maybe I will just need to change that and develop a taste for foods rather than Ramen and grilled cheese sandwiches... But I'm not giving that up just yet!

I started the workout yesterday and it was killer! I wanted to give up like 5 minutes in. I stuck it out and I did the second day today. I've realized that I could/should NEVER do any exercise in public or around people. My form is horrid and I am completely uncoordinated.  I'm trying hard to do the exercises exactly the way she is showing them. I don't want to get injured and have to quit before the end.

So, here goes nothing! I probably won't be done in exactly 30 days because my in-laws will be staying with us for around a week for Leah's blessing. I will have company in the house that I will NOT want to see me looking ridiculous while I exercise.

Pinterest and a Party!

It's true. I'm using. Pinterest.

I signed up for Pinterest about a year ago during my summer off. I was immediately overwhelmed by the cuteness and creativeness of all of the ideas. I am not creative. I am not original. I'm definitely not cute. I stink!

I never wanted to get on Pinterest again. I felt completely inadequate.

Fast forward about 11 months or so... It's 3 in the morning and I'm up feeding Leah. I'm glued to a rocking chair with no hope of getting up for the next 15-30 minutes. No one is updating their Facebook status and I've caught up with all of the blogs I read... What to do, what to do...

It started innocently enough with looking for ideas on how to decorate the STILL bare walls of Leah's nursery and then it turned into newborn photography tips, and then home improvement projects, and then cleaning tips, (VINEGAR works miracles!) and then, and then, and then...

It turns out that you don't need to be creative, or original, OR cute. Pinterest just helps you LOOK like you are! I've stopped looking at Pinterest as pressure or as a look-how-much-better-everyone-else-is and started to look at it for what it is... a way to cheat for people like myself.

It's all in your perspective. So now I can show you "my" creative, cute, original ideas... that I got off Pinterest.

While I was browsing for photography tips, I stumbled upon an idea to create a board book with pictures of the different family members... Leah's BFF, Brooke, was going to be having her one year birthday party and it was the PERFECT gift! Brooke loves to read and comes from a very close-knit family. I borrowed an external hard drive from my friend Caitlin (Brooke's mom) with tons of family pictures that I sorted through to find the right ones. Then, I used the website www.pintsizeproductions.com to create and print the book. It turned out just the way I wanted it to!

That was going to be it and then... Darn Pinterest! I stumbled upon these cute toddler purses and I decided that I needed a sewing project to get started with my new sewing machine. My problem was that I didn't really have any fabric, my mom's (rather large) stash is pretty outdated, and Leah doesn't do well on shopping trips. Then, I realized that I DID indeed have fabric. One of my baby shower presents was a bunch of different fat quarters for quilting. With the help of my mom, I was able to create my own pattern that used 2 fat quarters (outside + lining) and a skinny quarter (border for name and strap.) We also used some stuff (I forget what it's called) that I ironed onto the back of the fabric to stiffen it up, so the purse could keep its shape. My mom had some left over ribbon and she has a sewing machine that does embroidery, so I was able to put together what I think is a pretty cute little personalized purse! It's a Brookebag!

Brooke had an amazing birthday party! Leah at 5 1/2 weeks was able to hold her own with all of her one year old buddies. (...and by holding her own, I mean napping on my lap for most of the party and then waking up for the group picture!) I know she looks teeny in these pictures compared to the other littles, but she really is growing up so fast. I love my little sweet girl!

Leah 1 Month Old

Each day is new and different with you, Leah. You are growing and changing so quickly. Right now you weigh a little over 10 pounds and are about 24 inches long. You wear mostly newborn clothes and a few 0-3 month clothes. You have REALLY long feet! You have never fit into newborn socks and your feet barely fit on the paper for your footprints when you were born. We bumped you up into a size 1 diaper around 3 weeks after daddy couldn't find the brand of newborn size diapers that mommy asked for after traveling to 3 different stores! They're a little big on you. Here is your one month picture. You are wearing the bib daddy got you from Italy and "eating" the lamb stuffed animal he had made for you in Germany.

At your 2 week appointment the doctor commented on how strong you were and the nurse said you were acting more like a one month old because you almost rolled over on the scale. You have been pretty good about supporting your head and focusing your eyes basically since you were born. (You were only 3 days old in the picture below.) You have very strong legs and you use them to scoot yourself forward during tummy time.

Right now, you sleep best in bed with mommy. Sometimes I move you a foot or so away only to wake up later with you somehow snuggled next to me. I love it! You always sleep with your hands balled up in fists next to your face. You have a teeny tiny snore!

Your favorite time of day is around 10am. You are the most awake at this time and you like to jerk your arms and legs around while you lay in your play gym. You particularly enjoy looking at yourself in the mirror at the top. Your worst time of day starts around 6 pm. You constantly want to nurse. (I'm talking 3+ hours straight!) Even Grandpa H who is renown for putting babies to sleep can't get you to stop crying during this time!

Your eyes constantly move in the direction of any light. I wonder if "light" will be your first word like it was your daddy's. You like to sit up and face forward in my arms when I carry you, so that you can see everything! You have prehensile toes like your daddy and you grab onto my finger with your toes just like you do with your hands. You haven't quite fallen in love with your binky. You usually make a pretty skeptical or angry face initially when it is put in your mouth. You started to warm up to it a little around 2 1/2 weeks when we introduced the bottle. 

You hate cold wipes on your bottom, so diaper changes are usually a scream fest. You also hate the hiccups. I usually have about 10 hiccups warning before you "go nuclear" as your daddy says. You love having your legs and feet rubbed and it usually is a good way to get you to calm down. Bath time has been hit and miss. You seem to be thinking about whether or not you are going to like it.

I sure do love being your mommy!

Smiley Unscheduled Leah

I am loving being a mom! There are definitely some moments when it's rough, but I usually just sit there in awe most days over how much I am in love with this little girl.  The other day I was sitting on the couch with her and I thought.. Wow! I made this. How cool is that! 

So what are we up to?

Well after my last post, I skowered the Internet looking for different schedules and I found one that I thought would work for me. (There are some eh hem... Interesting "methods" out there. Just google Denmark's Divas.) The one that I liked was from a book called Baby Wise. I actually heard there was some controversy over the book, but I wanted to at least try it. Now I haven't read the book, but I thought that the 3 hours feeding schedule seemed nice and consistent and I know as a classroom teacher that I like consistency. Consistency makes expectations clear therefore making a more safe and predictable situation. Safety = happy baby, right?

So, I tried it. ...admittedly only for a day, but it was a NIGHTMARE!

New plan.

Do whatever the heck Leah wants until she's a little older.

When she is sleeping, I will let her sleep as long as she likes doesn't matter day or night. When she is hungry, I will feed her. Sounds simple enough... And it's actually working. I'm sure we'll get to a schedule eventually. I think I'm just going to try to be patient and allow it to start happening on its own.

Our major rough time starts around 6pm. I've heard this is called "The Bewitching Hour." She just wants to nurse and fuss and nurse some more. My supply in the evenings is lower, so I've been pumping during her morning nap and giving her a bottle of that in the evenings once she's drained me. There's still a lot of crying, but it's improving gradually.

Hmmm.. What else?

I had my post pardem visit today at 5 weeks. I'm trying out the Depo provera shot as a form of birth control. Pregnancy was good for me emotionally besides the morning sickness and huge uncomfortableness toward the end. The Depo shot mimics the hormones in a placenta, so it seemed like a good enough choice. If I have any adverse side effects for the next 3 months that it lasts, I guess I can just switch to something else. The best news of the appointment is that my doctors says that it is possible that pregnancy could have "cured" my endometriosis!  She sent me an email today after our appointment and decided that she wanted to schedule me to a follow-up ultrasound just to check things out. I'm feeling optimistic about my chance for future pregnancies!

After the appointment, I decided to stop by the school since its pretty close to my doctor's office. I texted my long term sub to see if it would be okay and then I headed over after my appointment. It was SO nice to see everyone and show them Leah. I was hanging out in the teachers lounge and the kids had no clue I was in the school, so we decided it would be funny if I just went to the cafeteria to pick them up from lunch.

They.  FLIPPED.  OUT.    In a good way of course. :)

I stayed around for recess as well since it was a nice day, but none of my kids wanted to play. They were just mobbing around Leah and I the whole time. I felt like Justin Bieber. ;)

Once I was home I thought Leah would crash HARD. She had already been awake for FIVE hours by the time I got home, so I put her in her crib and she just started smiling and cooing, so I got these great pictures. Seeing this little girl smile just melts me!

Schedule, Pleeease?

Motherhood has really been wonderful so far. Yes, there are definitely the sleepless nights, but this little girl is incredible. Some nights when I finally get her to sleep, I just stop and watch her for a while (even though I am incredibly tired) and think about how amazing it is that I helped create this little girl.

The thing that I am missing now is some semblance of a schedule. I do realize that scheduling a newborn is probably along the same line as herding cats, but I have always done best with a schedule. Early last week, I was having a hard time feeling productive... and when I don't feel productive I can sink into a mini depression. (I don't think this was post pardem depression.) It happens sometimes during my summers off work. I know now that my new job is taking care of my little Leah, but I couldn't help wonder, "Is this my life now?"

Feed, Sleep, Change Diaper - repeat.

I know that newborns don't stay newborns forever and that I should just enjoy this snugly phase before it's gone. Don't worry, I am definitely getting in several hours a day of snuggle time! I just need to feel like I have something to SHOW for the time that has passed. I know I will not be able to accomplish nearly the amount of stuff I could pre-mommihood, but it'd be nice to accomplish more than pulling the wind up chain on my cuckoo clock from Germany each day.

I decided to calculate how the hours in my 24 hour day are spent.

1. Leah sleeps at this point for about 18 hours a day. - So she's awake 6 hours.
2. Let's say I get 8 hours of sleep (not consecutive, of course!)
3. I nurse Leah about 12 times a day for around 30 minutes each session - 6 hours
4. 6 + 8 + 6 = 20 hours of "busy" time.
5. 24 - 20 = 4 hours

Wow! Now THAT is a full time job! And WOW, I really have 4 WHOLE hours to myself. The possibilities are limitless! ;)

I sat down today at my computer (during a portion of my 4 hours) and tried to put together a schedule while Leah was napping. I'm not going to share it because it's probably pretty ridiculous and rigid at this point, but it's nice to know that EVENTUALLY we will get to some sort of schedule and I can be OK with my unscheduled, unproductive life right now.

I guess I can spend some of my 4 hours of "ME time" each day snuggling with Leah.

I'm posting from my iPad which only allows me to put the pictures at the end of the post, so here are some pictures of my little snuggler who's peaceful and doll-like while sleeping, but rather grumpy in the mornings. She loves her little play gym and even makes faces at the mirror. We also do some tummy time each day which wears her out! :)

I Will Never...

Before I was a mom, I tried to stay away from the, "I will NEVER do ____ when I'm a parent!" statements. First, because I felt like I couldn't really make a judgement on such a thing until I was a parent myself and second because I didn't want to end up being wrong. :)

BUT, there was ONE statement that I felt was the exception to this rule...

I will NEVER let the baby sleep in MY bed. Babies belong in their cribs from the FIRST night home from the hospital, right?!? A baby in your bed is not only dangerous. (You could smother your baby while you sleep!) A baby in your bed will interfere with your marriage. No privacy for... ya know?! Your child will end up sleeping in your bed until they start kindergarten. Your kid will be that one that is needy and clings to mommy and refuses to socialize because you've made them completely codependent.

I don't want to RUIN my baby.

FIRST night home from the hospital... Baby monitors are set up. We got the high tech ones, but not the highest tech with like video monitoring (We're not THOSE parents!) We're in bed by 8:30pm and Leah is sleeping peacefully in her cradle IN THE NURSERY. She hasn't stirred, she's warm, her belly is full, her diaper is clean, she's been burped, etc... I've set the alarm for 3 hours so I can wake up and nurse her if she doesn't wake me up first. I can now enjoy a peaceful nights' rest in my own bed without all of the noisy interruptions from the hospital.

8:32pm - Wait?! DID YOU HEAR THAT? (Check on Leah, who is still sleeping peacefully.) I decide to stay and watch her sleep for about 5 minutes just to make sure. She's fine. I can go back to bed. Can I turn up the sensitivity on these monitors? They're already at their max setting, huh? Well, I guess I can sleep with it on my ear instead of on my night stand. Back to sleep. (I'm not going to be one of those crazy moms!)

9:30 pm - Wait?! DID YOU HEAR THAT?! The monitor is registering no sound. I'll just go and check on her to be sure. The second I open the door, I hear choking and see Leah struggling in her cradle to breathe. Her face isn't quite changing colors, but she definitely has a spit-up like mucus in her mouth that is preventing her from breathing, I grab her in one quick scoop and frantically pat her back to get her breathing again. She is fine within seconds. Immediately, the picture of a cold, still infant flashes in my brain. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins. I'm no longer the least bit tired. What if I hadn't checked on her???

I calm Leah down by cuddling her and then nursing her to sleep. I google on my phone for infants choking on spit-up. One article come up that says it's impossible because a baby will turn its head to the side before it chokes. I feel relieved, but keep on searching. I come upon a babycenter message board. Several mothers are in a discussion about the same thing. One is staying that she had to call an ambulance to resuscitate her child after a similar incident. Oh my gosh! How am I going to sleep knowing that my child could choke any second and I wouldn't be able to hear it on the monitor?

Wait, she had mucus in her mouth. Could that be a sign of cystic fibrosis? (My brother passed away from cystic fibrosis unexpectedly as an infant.) I tested positive as a carrier. We don't know if Doug is a carrier. Her results will not be back for two weeks... I remember my grandma saying that my brother's skin was salty. (Taste Leah's skin... not salty) Okay.

I bring a blanket into the nursery and "sleep" the rest of the night on the floor next to the cradle.

Doug wakes up around 4:30 am and finds me in the nursery. He sends me to bed, takes away the monitor, and then promises to stay in the nursery. I am asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

9:30 am - I wake up in a panic. Has it really been 5 hours?!? I run into the nursery to find Leah perfectly content and Doug getting ready to do a diaper change. I let Doug know about the 3 hour nursing rule and he looks at me like I'm crazy.

Doug - "You mean that while she is nursing, you will have no longer than 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep?!?"

Me - "Yeah, 1-3 hours. That's what they say you should do."

Doug - "I say they're out of their freaking minds! If a baby is sleeping, you don't wake it up!"

The cradle was in our room by the next night. Right now, Doug only sleeps in our bedroom on nights where he won't be working the next day. His job is such that he needs to get a full night's rest because mistakes can mean rather serious consequences. He's sleeping two floors down in the guest bedroom in the basement. (Lucky him! ...I'm actually okay with this situation and came up with this solution myself.)

Tuesday morning, he came up to shower and found Leah in bed with me. It had started innocently at first with me just wanting to nurse her in bed. She would wake up each time I tried to put her back in the cradle, so I just ended up moving her about a foot from me after finishing nursing her and then going to bed. Doug then tells me this horror story about a guy that he works with. Apparently, this guy's wife fell asleep with their newborn son in bed and accidentally smothered him in her sleep. Doug said that the guy talked about how he would never forget the wailing sobs of his wife or the cold feeling of his son.

OH MY GOSH! I almost killed my baby! What was I freaking thinking?!?

Tuesday night... Leah WILL NOT sleep in her crib, in her cradle, in her swing, in her bouncer. She will NOT sleep anywhere! Oh my gosh, is it possible for a child to nurse for 4 straight hours?!? (The answer to that question unfortunately is YES.) I give up around 4:30am and erect a fort of pillows around her on our king size bed. I nurse her and lay her down and she... STAYS asleep. I watch her sleep peacefully for a little while and then pass out myself on my cordoned off portion of the bed.

It is a week later and we are now practicing co-sleeping. I've decided that for the next couple of weeks we are going to treat this like a fourth trimester... Life as similar as possible to life in the womb. I'll try on weekends to get her back into the crib, but for right now, we're working for survival.

I've decided that there isn't just ONE right way for this mom stuff. We will do what works for us.

Being a mom is definitely a challenge, but I love it anyway... In a crazy, sleep-deprived loving way.

Leah's Birth Story

Leah was born last Wednesday, April 10th a little before midnight! Her actual due date wasn't until April 11. This was very unexpected considering that everyone in my family so far has had their babies late. (I, myself, came 3 weeks late!) I've been meaning to get this up here for some time, but it turns out babies are actually a lot of work!

I'll start on Tuesday, April 9. My mom and I had been working on a nursing gown that I could wear in the hospital once I had Leah. I figured that was high priority since it was to go in the hospital bag, so I headed over to my parents' house to "help" my mom work on it. Once I got there, I discovered that my mom's visiting teachers were over, so I just had to sit on the couch and wait. I was feeling pretty restless and finally decided that I was going to vacuum and clean out the interior of my car... 9 months pregnant! It was actually a pretty hot day and I stopped several times to get a drink of water. I believe it was then that I was feeling a "tightening" but I figured it was just Leah stretching out.

Each Tuesday, my friend Caitlin and I do a "Girls' Night Out" while her husband is doing a duty shift as a volunteer fire fighter. We had some extra invitees from work, so Caitlin made a delicious chicken dish and I made strawberry shortcake for desert. After dinner, we were sitting around chatting when I realized that I had consistently been feeling a tightening in my abdomen. While we were in the middle of talking, I grabbed my friend Trisha's hand and said, "Can you feel that?!?" She said she could, but since I wasn't in pain we just decided that it must be Braxton-Hicks contractions.

As I drove home later, I realized that I was having these tightening feelings pretty regularly so I voice googled on my phone what the difference between Braxton-Hicks and real contractions were. I read the article at a stop light and that's when I thought I might be in labor for the first time. Once I got home, I decided to download a free app that would allow me to see the timing between these mysterious tightening sensations that were starting to hurt a little more each time. When I started timing around 10pm, they were about 7 minutes apart and continued at pretty regular intervals all through the night waking me up each time.

Doug had already been asleep whenever I got home, so I didn't want to wake him until I knew for sure that this wasn't false labor. It was around 2:30 am when my contractions were around 5 minutes apart and lasting about 45 seconds to a minute. I called the advice nurse hotline and the lady told me that I should continue to labor at home for 2 hours. 2 hours?!? The contractions had worsened to the point that I couldn't talk during them. I thought there would be more urgency considering that I had followed the directions so well and waited to call. I kindly let the woman on the phone know that we lived an hour away from the hospital thinking that she might have me leave earlier, but she gave me the SAME directions...

Fast forward an hour and a half... OUCH! Contractions hurt! I woke Doug up at 4 am and told him that I was in labor and we needed to leave in 30 minutes and that he might want to shower. He got right up, without panicking one bit, and listened to my directions. Once he was out of the shower, I had him load everything into the car while I showered myself. We got in the car and drove to the hospital obeying all traffic laws... Well mostly anyway.

I remember thinking the whole time that I thought it would be more intense and exciting and well... more fast-paced, but there we were just hanging out, talking in the car, driving to the hospital to have a baby.

We got to the hospital around 5 am and went in the emergency room entrance since labor and delivery wasn't open yet. The whole place was empty and they had me checked in and in a wheelchair and carted to labor and delivery in no time. I got in the gown, peed in the cup, and they started an IV on me with antibiotics since I was strep B positive. There was a shift change right after we got there, so we ended up getting a new nurse and doctor barely after meeting the first ones. When we were admitted, I was 2 and a half centimeters dilated and 70% effaced. The nurse asked me a million questions and after that we were to just hang out and wait. I let the nurse know right off that I was going to get an epidural when the time was right, but I wanted to be 3-4 cm dilated before doing so. (Because I had read that was a good time.)

Funny side story... While we were "hanging out" waiting for me to progress, I started gagging during a particularly painful contraction and Doug couldn't find a barf bucket anywhere. I was making pretty horrendous gagging sounds and there were no nurses in sight and he frantically tried to call one down. He saw behind my bed two different buttons, one said CODE and he knew he shouldn't push that one, so he pushed the other one that said ASSIST. Within a few seconds, we had every nurse on the floor rushing into our room. We were taken care of rather quickly and then shown this handy dandy little remote dangling next to my bed that had a nurse call button. Oops! Our first nurse had not shown us how to get a nurse before her shift was over.

After I finished the first dose of antibiotics (around 8am), they told me that Doug and I could walk around the labor and delivery wing for an hour to help me progress a little faster. By this point the contractions had worsened to the point that they were pretty terrible and an hour of walking did not seem like much fun, but I wanted Leah to get here, so we started walking. Doug was awesome at holding my hand and rubbing my back through the contractions. I figured that there would be several walking moms in labor in the hallway, but we were the ONLY ones. After about 30 minutes, I was crying on my hands and knees in the hall for every contraction and I was getting annoyed that everyone else in the wing seemed to be chatting happily with guests in their room. I kept on telling Doug in between contractions, "Why is no one else walking?! Are we doing this the HARD way? I want to do it the EASY way!" (Doug said I was getting "pretty grumpy.")

It was around 9 am and we were finally back in the room after all of my "hard work" and my nurse asked if I wanted the epidural. I said yes, but I wanted to be 3-4 cm dilated, but no one had checked me in a while. She then told me that the anesthesiologist was right nearby and if she didn't start the paperwork, it might be a while. This alarmed me quite a bit, so I just said, "Yes, I'll get it now." The anesthesiologist and nurse were in there in no time and Doug was out of the room rather quickly due to his needle phobia. They had me hang my legs over the side of the bed, hunch over, and then relax. I felt a little poking I think from them numbing the spot, but then nothing after that. The next thing I knew, it was in and I was laying down. My next contraction I only felt on the right side and then NOTHING. It was amazing! I could still move both of my legs unassisted, but I couldn't feel any contractions. I kept on looking back at the contraction monitor spiking like crazy with a big grin thinking, "I'm glad I can't feel that!"

The doctor for the new shift came in around 10 am and checked me and I was STILL a 2 and a half. I had been laboring consistently for about 13 hours at this point. It was rather depressing news. She said that they would start me on a low dose of pitocin. She gave me an estimate of about 10 pm and said that I should rest up because we would be hanging out for a while. Doug needed to set up some stuff at work, so he left for a little while and I took a nap. Apparently Doug got a lot if flack at work for being there while his wife was in labor. :)

I was making very slow progress all day long and the doctor had gradually been upping the dose of pitocin. It was 7 pm when the doctor came back in to check on me and I was 7 cm dilated. She broke my water and dialed the pitocin to its max dose. When they broke my water, they noticed that there was meconium (baby poo) in it meaning that it could be in Leah's lungs. She was also worried about the size of the baby and told me that I should start mentally preparing for a c-section. I was absolutely devastated. I cried as soon as she left the room. I was trying to think of the positives of having a c-section and the ONLY thing I could think of was that Leah wouldn't have a cone-shaped head!

After my water broke, I started feeling contractions again, but I'm sure no where near their full strength because of the epidural. There was a button that I could push to up the drugs for the epidural, but I refused to do so because I was determined to push this baby out and not have a c-section. I didn't want the epidural to dull the sensation to push when it was time.

I tried to relax. I looked at the contraction monitor and tried to visualize Leah moving down and my body progressing with each contraction. I prayed silently that everything would go okay and that regardless of the way that she got here (hopefully a vaginal delivery) that I just wanted her here safe and healthy.

Around 10 pm, my nurse left and told me that she was going to get my doctor to check me to see if I had progressed any. About 30 seconds after she left the room, I felt like I was going to get sick. I mumbled that I needed something to throw up in to Doug who responded, "Speak clearly, I can't understand you when you mumble!" Haha. I think he started getting it due to my body language and was able to get me what I needed just in time. (I was really regretting that yummy lemon flavored Italian shaved ice pop I ate earlier!)

The doctor and nurse came in the door a few minutes later and checked me and I was a 10!!! Leah was ready to come into this world. Pushing apparently can take a while, so the doctor left again (I think she had been napping somewhere.) and my nurse had me start pushing with each contraction. I realized that I was more in charge during this part because my pushes were more productive when I felt the urge to push. (I guess something that will help me next time!) Doug and I had discussed ahead of time that he would be "up front" at my head looking into my eyes and holding my hand. Well, no one told the nurse, so he ended up holding one of my legs with a front row seat to all of the pushing and the birth.

Soon after he had been enlisted to help, we made eye contact and our communication exchange was rather clear. He looked at me with this look that said, "I don't want to be doing this!" and I looked right back at him with the SAME look. We came to the quick consensus that neither of us would be getting out of our respective roles. Doug's facial expressions during labor were pretty unforgettable. :) He didn't looked sickened or grossed out like I thought he would be. He had this look of complete shock and amazement.

I pushed for about 30 minutes before Leah made her grand entrance into the world at 8 pounds 10 ounces and 21.25 centimeters long. Leah came into this world grunting from the meconium. They showed her to me and then rushed her over to a table in the room to be suctioned and checked out. They handed her back to me within a few minutes, so that I could try breastfeeding. She surprisingly latched right on a nursed voraciously for several minutes until the next team came in to bathe her, do the eye goop, and a vitamin D shot.

I love her!

Last Minute Baby Shower

So, it 2:30 in the morning and I CAN'T get back to sleep. Why? Well, a friend at church offered to throw me a baby shower. The problem is that she just found out that she is going to have to travel for the next two months for work and the shower has been moved up to THIS Friday. We handed out invitations at church on Sunday, but I'm worried that no one will come because they'll forget and it's such short notice and well... I don't really have many friends at church. My dear sweet Relief Society president HAND WROTE about 50 little pink invites! :(

I have this huge guilt that she's doing all of this when she has so much on her plate already with this trip coming up. I'm not worried about presents. I'm just worried that she will go through all of this trouble for nothing. (She even mentioned a previous shower that she threw that no one came to and how upsetting it was..) I'd actually just love the opportunity to make some new friends at church and get some good baby advice.

So here's the question... Would it be tacky to create a Facebook event for the shower or make an announcement on the Relief Society Facebook group I'm part of for my ward to remind/let people know people about it? (My friend isn't on Facebook.) OR should I just relax and not worry about it?